1. Field
The present invention relates generally to position determination. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for providing a more accurate position estimate for a wireless terminal using a set of measurements.
2. Background
It is often desirable, and sometimes necessary, to know the position of a wireless user. For example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has adopted a report and order for enhanced 911 (E9-1-1) wireless service that requires the location of a wireless terminal (e.g., a cellular phone, modem, computer with wireless capability, personal digital assistant (PDA), or any other such mobile or portable device that has wireless communication capability) to be provided to a Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) each time a 911 call is made from the terminal. The FCC mandate requires the location of the terminal, for handset-based technologies such as Assisted-GPS (A-GPS), to be accurate to within 50 meters for 67% of calls and within 150 meters for 95% of calls. In addition to the FCC mandate, service providers may use location services (i.e., services that identify the position of wireless terminals) in various applications to provide value-added features that may generate additional revenue.
Various systems may be used to determine the position of a wireless terminal. One such system is the well-known Global Positioning System (GPS), which is a “constellation” of 24 well-spaced satellites that orbit the earth. Each GPS satellite transmits a signal encoded with information that allows receivers to measure the time of arrival of the received signal relative to an arbitrary point in time. This relative time-of-arrival measurement may then be converted to a “pseudo-range”, which is the sum of the actual range between the satellite and the terminal plus all errors associated with the measurement. A three-dimensional position of a GPS receiver may be accurately estimated (to within 10 to 100 meters for most GPS receivers) based on pseudo-range measurements to a sufficient number of satellites (typically four) and their locations.
A wireless communication system, such as a cellular communication system, may also be used to determine the position of a wireless terminal. Similar to the GPS signals, a terminal may receive a “terrestrial” signal from an earth-bound base station and determine the time of arrival of the received signal. Again, the time-of-arrival measurement may be converted to a pseudo-range. Pseudo-range measurements to a sufficient number of base stations (typically three or more) may then be used to estimate a two-dimensional position of the terminal.
In a hybrid position determination system, signals from earth-bound base stations may be used in place of or to supplement, signals from GPS satellites to determine the position of a wireless terminal. A “hybrid” terminal would include a GPS receiver for receiving GPS signals from the satellites and a “terrestrial” receiver for receiving terrestrial signals from the base stations. The signals received from the base stations may be used for timing by the terminal or may be converted to pseudo-ranges. The three-dimensional position of the terminal may be estimated based on a sufficient number of measurements for the satellites and base stations (for CDMA networks it is typically four).
The three different position determination systems described above (namely GPS, wireless, and hybrid) can provide position estimates (or “fixes”) with different levels of accuracy. A position estimate derived based on signals from the GPS is the most accurate. However, GPS signals are received at very low power levels due to the large distances between the satellites and the receivers. Moreover, most conventional GPS receivers have great difficulty receiving GPS signals inside buildings, under dense foliage, in urban settings in which tall buildings block much of the sky, and so on. A position estimate derived from the hybrid system is less accurate, and one derived based on signals from the wireless communication system is even less accurate. This is because pseudo-ranges computed based on signals from the base stations are prone to exhibit larger errors than those computed from GPS signals due to timing and hardware errors in the base stations, timing and hardware errors in the terminal, and errors due to the terrestrial propagation path.
The position of a terminal may be estimated based on any one of the three systems described above. It is desirable to obtain a position estimate that is as accurate as possible. Thus, a GPS solution would be derived if a sufficient number of GPS signals are available. If such is not the case, then a hybrid solution may be derived if one or more GPS signals plus a sufficient number of terrestrial signals are available. And if no GPS signals are available, then a cellular solution may be obtained if a sufficient number of terrestrial signals are available.
The required number of signals to derive any one of the three solutions described above may not be available. In such situations, some alternative position determination technique may be used to estimate the terminal's position. One such alternative technique is the cell-ID technique, which provides a designated location for a reference (or serving) base station with which the terminal is in communication as the terminal's position estimate. This designated location may be the center of the base station’ coverage area, the location of the base station antenna, or some other location within the coverage area of the base station. An enhanced cell-ID solution may combine cell-ID information from a reference base station with cell-ID information from another base station and/or include a round-trip delay measurements and/or signal strength measurements from at least one base station which is in communication with the terminal. A cell-ID or enhanced cell-ID solution may be provided as a “fall-back” or “safety-net” solution when a more accurate solution cannot be independently derived because a sufficient number of signals is not available. Unfortunately, since the quality of the position estimate provided by the above mentioned alternative technique is dependent on the size of the base station's coverage area, it may be quite poor.
There is therefore a need in the art for a method and apparatus to provide a more accurate position estimate for the terminal using measurements that are available.